1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bracket that is used to couple a flexible circuit board to the actuator arm of a hard disk drive.
2. Description of Related Art
Hard disk drives contain a magnetic head which can magnetize and sense the magnetic field of a magnetic disk. The magnetic head is located on the end of an actuator arm which can rotate the head relative to the surface of the disk. The head provides an analog signal to electronic devices that are mounted to the baseplate of the disk drive. The electronic devices are typically coupled to the actuator by a flexible circuit board. Flexible circuit boards contain conductive traces which are encapsulated by two layers of polyimide tape. The polyimide is flexible enough to be bent like a wire so that the board can be routed from the devices to the actuator arm.
When power to a disk drive is terminated, the head is typically moved to a landing zone located at the inner diameter of the disk. Many disk drives utilize the back EMF of the spin motor to generate power to move the heads to the landing zone of the disk. To assist in the movement of the heads to the landing zone, some actuator arm assemblies have a loop in the flexible circuit board which generates a spring force that biases the actuator arm toward the inner diameter of the disk. The loop is commonly formed by placing the flexible circuit within a notch that is machined into the actuator arm. The flexible circuit board is attached to the notch by screws, adhesives or other fastening means. Having to attach the flexible circuit to the actuator with screws or an adhesive increases the assembly time of the disk drive. It would be desirable to have an actuator arm assembly which will create a loop in the flexible circuit board and can be coupled to the arm without screws or an adhesive.